While there are many idealistic people in this world, few actually do things to implement their opinions and ideas in a pragmatic way. John Montgomery, the founder and CEO of Bridgeway Funds is certainly not one of these people. From reading an excellent Barron's article (subscription required), I've learned more about compassion and philanthropy in an investing leader than I have from any other article this month. In addition to learning about compassion, I learned a very interesting remedy to emotional inefficiency that exists in nearly every investor.

Every year, Montgomery's company gives half of its profits to charity. While many companies do have "philanthropy" departments, very few give significant amounts of money compared to the company's profits. I've also found that many companies simply do this for tax advantages -- this is not the case with Bridgeway. Each of the company's 24 employees could select a charity to receive at least $20,000.

Montgomery also limits his compensation to seven-times that of his lowest employee. For those not familiar with the disgusting executive pay situation in this country, the average CEO makes 531 times the pay of his lowest employee. While many, including myself, just complain about this fact, Montgomery is actually doing something about it: "Executive compensation is way out of whack in this country, so we have our own system to reduce any possible animosity in the firm."

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A man to envy: John Montgomery originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.